Highlights from Serengeti, Day 2

A day on Safari in the Serengeti

Vulture Feast or Famine

Side Stripe Jackal

  When looking back at all the pictures from our first full day in the Serengeti I couldn't believe that we saw all of this in just one day. The rules are a little stricter here than where we were in the Masai Mara, so the plan was to get an early start just after daybreak, take our breakfast with us, make it back to camp around lunchtime, then head out again around 4:30pm for an afternoon game drive, getting back to camp before dark. Little did we know what kind of day the Serengeti would send out way, although I should have had a guess with the Dillon's luck so far that it was going to be a memorable one.

Migrating Wildebeest

Fischer's Lovebird

  We started off the day with a semi-recent kill. A spotted hyena was just leaving, opening the kill up to about 100 vultures of 4 different species. The most prevalent was also the most endangered, the Ruppell's griffon vulture. It is known as the highest flying bird, with reports of it flying up to 37,000ft. In this part of the Serengeti it is also known to be the most dominant vulture on the scene of a recent kill. The constant noise and battling of the vultures over the prime feeding spots was amazing to hear and witness. A couple of jackals came onto the scene to try and snag a snack but even they couldn't break through the line of jostling vultures.

Looking for food

Young Cheetah

The next big sighting came in the middle of the woodlands, when we came upon a family of cheetahs looking like they were on the prowl. It was a mother with two older cubs. In the distance, between the trees we could see some Grant's gazelles lazily grazing, but still far away. We tried to position ourselves to be in prime viewing area in case the hunt happened while we were there. Several times the mom stood up, made eye contact with her cubs, and slinked off towards the gazelles. The cubs would follow her lead. It was exciting getting to see this training and teaching in action.

Setting up the African bush breakfast

    Eventually our empty bellies got the better of us and we slinked off to a nearby clearing to have a wonderful breakfast in the bush. And this wasn't just pouring some hot water into instant oatmeal, we are talking french pressed coffee, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, jam, granola, yogurt, juice, muffins, and fruit. All this safariing can really get your appetite going.

Still on the hunt

  By the time we finished breakfast the cheetah family had still not made a kill. However they did make their way pretty close to where we had been eating. Not a bad wild animal to say you have shared a meal spot with, and this was the second time in two different countries for this group. After the group's first bush meal on the airstrip in the Mara where everyone kept checking their surroundings every ten seconds, we had gotten pretty used to being immersed into the wild with no fences in sight.  

Grey Crowned Crane

Avoiding the heat of the day

  After staying with the cheetah family a little bit longer we continued on with our morning game drive, encountering beautiful birds like the grey crowned crane and big schools of wildebeest and zebra who had migrated the entire distance that we recently covered by airplane flying down from the Masai Mara.

Untimely End for this Giraffe

Moira, Fi, and Erin investigating

   After a lunch break back at the camp we jumped back into the safari vehicles with our guides; Justice, Mohammad, and Solomon. The first thing we found was a pretty rare sight...a giraffe carcass that lion had taken down a few weeks ago. It was out in the middle of the dry river bed so we got out to take a closer look. A lot of the skin was left intact, and was turning into a hard rawhide type feel. It reminded me of the shields that the local tribes used to make for protection. It is unusual for lions to take down a giraffe. But the grizzled smile of the giraffes remaining teeth served as a constant reminder not to underestimate what the wild can thrown your way.

Bat Eared Fox

African Elephant

  Shortly after the giraffe carcass we came across one of the cutest residents of the Serengeti, a bat eared fox (Otocyon megalotis). And as we watched, another pair of ears popped out of a hole a few feet away. These giant ears were attached to a baby bat eared fox. It turns out that we were looking at a fox den where a family of foxes lay hidden from view most of the day. The huge ears help the fox thermoregulate in the hot savanna. And they have been known to eat 1.15 million termites annually. Nearby to the fox stood another big eared animal, but this one happened to be the largest land mammal on earth. The African elephant looks quite different than the tiny bat eared fox but it uses its oversized ears for the same reason, to enable heat loss in the hot savanna.

Warning to all cheetahs

   Depending on what park or reserve I go to in Africa I often expect to see elephants. I don't always expect to see bat eared foxes. But I never expected to see what we saw next. Solomon drove us under a big tree with something dangling down from one of the branches. It looked like some macabre warning out of a Hollywood movie. Something had been hung, head down, dangling, as if it had been trying to get away but was pinned down from the back. It was a cheetah. Solomon told us about a week ago a leopard had grabbed this cheetah, took it up into the tree, and proceeded to eat it, leaving the pelt dangling as its trophy. It is a tough life out here in the wilds of Africa. You could even say its a cat eat cat world.

Cat nap

  Our luck with big cats continued into the late afternoon as we came across another lion up in a tree! The last time we saw this was in the Mara right before the hunt, but this looked to be more of a lounging session for this lioness. There was talk of some lion turf wars earlier in the day, with a neighboring pride coming into this area and starting fights. I wonder if this female was figuring out a way to safely avoid the fighting while grabbing a quick cat nap.

Licking its injured leg

  It was hard to leave the lioness in the tree but we knew we had to get back before dark, Serengeti rules and all. It is one of the best ways the rangers here can combat poaching, by keeping everyone off the roads at night. They have done a wonderful job here in Tanzania and Kenya cutting down the numbers of poachers. The animals certainly seemed plentiful to us as we wouldn't go long without one amazing encounter after another.

  It was on our way back to camp that we stumbled across our last big sighting of the day. Two big male lions lay resting. There are dirt roads in this part of the Serengeti but our guides hardly used them. We drove off road for a good 80 percent of the time. Which meant for encounters like this we could get very close. Lions have a way of looking right through you, but there was a moment during this encounter when one of the lions turned and looked right at the folks in the car. It was a bit unnerving as these are open air vehicles safari vehicles. We could tell that one of the lions was injured on its paw as it kept licking that part of its leg. We learned that these two brothers are part of the neighboring pride and they were the ones fighting with the two blond maned brothers we saw yesterday on our way in.

  It is the never ending story of the Serengeti, and we were right in the middle of it.